The CEO and co-founder of the collapsed energy company Bulb will leave in late July, after continuing to receive a six-figure salary while the company relied on billions in taxpayer loans.
Hayden Wood leaves the UK’s seventh-largest energy supplier, which has about 1.5 million customers, as the government continues to look for a buyer to save Bulb.
He stayed in the company after moving to a “special administration” – the biggest victim of the growing energy crisis – in November last year.
Bulb was criticized for staying with Wood, who co-founded what was one of the UK’s most celebrated startups in East London in 2015, as his £ 1.7 billion bailout was the largest bailout of taxpayers since government interventions at the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS in 2008..
Wood had been criticized by lawmakers for continuing to receive a £ 250,000 taxpayer-funded salary while helping Teneo’s special administrators find a buyer.
“Bulb CEO and co-founder Hayden Wood is retiring from the business,” the company said in a statement. “We wish you all the best for the future.”
Wood is not expected to receive any severance pay, according to the Financial Times.
When wholesale energy prices began to skyrocket in early 2021, Bulb sought funding to boost the business, followed by unsuccessful attempts to sell to an industry rival.
In November, the company told the industry regulator it could no longer operate as a running company, one of dozens of energy companies that failed due to rising energy prices.
At a parliamentary hearing in April, Wood apologized to MPs for “how things turned out” with the company.
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Centrica, the owner of British Gas, withdrew from the process to potentially buy Bulb last month. UK rival Octopus Energy and Masdar, an Abu Dhabi energy company, continue as bidders.
No alternate CEO has been appointed. Wood’s roles will be split among the remaining executive team.
Bulb lost 886 million pounds in the six months since nationalization, according to managers ’reports released earlier this month. Dozens of creditors, many of them small businesses, are owed £ 585 million and are unlikely to be paid.